Taxidermists, in the preparation of head-and-neck trophy mounts of horned (antlered) animals such as deer, elk, antelope, moose, goats, cattle, sheep and the like, often experience difficulty in securing the antlers to the mannikin in the proper position thereon. This is because the prior art mannikins have a flat surface skull area to which the animal's skull plate, when removed from the animal, is secured. However, the animal's skull plate is not flat, but is curved. The underside of the skull plate is concave, being curved like a dome ceiling from side to side and also from front to back. Accordingly, it is most difficult to position the curved skull plate correctly on the flat surface, and the common practice has been to use wedge pieces, or excelsior, or modeling clay, as a build-up to better accomodate the concavity in the skull plate, to try to hold and fasten the skull plate to the flat surface in correct position. It is a time consuming process often resulting in rotating the skull plate too far forward or too far back, or too far right or too far left. And often the antlers are secured in improper position, tipped too far forwardly or rearwardly, or tipped too far to the right or left.
Flat skulled prior art mannikins are shown, e.g., in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,831,271, 4,432,919, and 4,596,683.